Thanksgiving Hike

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. I had a wonderful weekend. Ron and I went to a great Thanksgiving Dinner for the whole community that was free. It was put on by the Youth Garden Project and Wabi Sabi which a nonprofit group here in Moab. There were two lines; one for carnivores and the other for herbivores so I was safe eating in my new vegetarian state (about a year now).

This weekend I got together with Ron and my wonderful friends Rodger and Dana who are nurses here. I met them when I was working at The Peace Tree. We first went and saw some great petroglyphs that Ron knew about. They were pretty cool and included an owl.

After we found the owl we decided to go hiking up Moonflower trail to try and find a Mastodon Petroglyph Ron had been trying to find about a year. I frankly didn't believe it existed. This isn't an area you would expect to see any evidence of Mammoths but we all indulged Ron and

went on an adventure becaus

e it was a beautiful day and we were all just excited to be outside. So off we went and we saw many wonderful petroglyphs but no Mastodons. We found one canyon that had a very small waterfall remnant. I can't wait to see it during the rainy season here (we're in a desert so I use that term lightly).

From this picture you can see how vast and majestic this countryside is. If I went out every weekend to go hiking from now on I would probably not be able to see all there is here. But I'm going to die trying.

Here is that little waterfall and oasis we found. I'm thinking a great place to skinny dip!!

After a long hike with no Mastodon in site I thought I would take my new hiking boots and find an easy trail back down off the cliffs. I had Indigo the sweet dog walking with me and off I went. Well I discovered over and over everything ended off a cliff with no way to get down. After a while I noticed I was alone. No Indigo....no Dana....no Rodger....no Ron. Hmmmm. Okay so I realized I was on my own. Now mind you a mere few months ago I was terrified of heights and cliffs and rocks ....you get the picture but I'm feeling pretty brave in my new hiking boots so off I go. The only thing I was worried about was I figured Ron would be pretty worried about me. I finally found a jeep trail down and I walked the long way back to the car. On the way I looked over in a field and the three cutest Donkeys were following along beside me. So I stopped and made friends of course

.

These are the cutest faces!! The Donkeys...not Rodger and Dana...well actually they are pretty cute too!!!

Finally Ron came jogging up to the car. We found Rodger and Dana and went off to shovel banana splits in our gut.

The next day Ron and I went one more time to try and find that stupid Mastodon but now we had to find a Bear as well. Ron talks to locals at the coffee shop next door to my studio and they always have these tall tales of this and that. But I was fine because once again it was a beautiful day. After a fairly short hike there it was......the MASTODON!!! What the hell?? Maybe there were Mammoths down this far.Then when we were ready to give up on the Bear (yes I was a believer by this time) there the Bear was. These two petroglyphs are so unique in this area and

very exciting to see.